Back to the Future
Glenelg v North Adelaide, 13 May 2023 (John Sandland Cup) It was a very pleasant autumn afternoon, starting with a 104 point win to the Tigers Reserves, and then, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Greatest Game Ever Played, surviving members (or next of kin) of the 1973 Premiership Team paraded on to the ground, led by Captain Peter Marker. The Sacred Heart School Drummers gave all of them a fine volley of percussion. It was a lovely trip down Amnesia Lane to catch up with the Greats from that Greatest of Great Days, including Neville Caldwell, Peter…
Continue Reading →Eurovision 2023
Ah Eurovision! How we love you – always oozing zeitgeist. As the fashion of 2023 is virtue-signalling, so Eurovision 2023 is all woke and everything. But not even the po-faced killjoys of intersectionality politics can strip the time-honoured Eurovision Song Contest of its retro, delusional charm and Martian qualities. No! Though it nods to the real world, Eurovision will never be mainstream or proper. It is…Eurovision… So the 2023 Grand Final (in Liverpool, England because the 2022 winner Ukraine is at war) started true to form with an inexplicable number featuring Cousin-It ‘dancers’ in ghillie-suit-womble ensembles, a bit like those…
Continue Reading →Vale Barry Humphries
(17 February 1934 – 22 April 2023) On Saturday night (22/4/23) TVC went to see the very funny Jimmy Carr. Later on, we saw his tweet: “A bit bittersweet doing gigs in Australia this evening, Barry Humphries has passed and no one will ever be as good at crowd work again.” Whilst something of a polymath, Humphries’ great legacy was established on the boards. His one-man, multi-character work in the theatre is unmatched. Most famous is his Housewife Gigastar, Dame Edna Everage. Caroline Overington, in the Sydney Morning Herald, described Dame Edna as “a perfect parody of a modern, vainglorious…
Continue Reading →Jimmy Carr – Terribly Funny
(Thebarton Theatre, 22 April 2023) For the better part of 2 hours late on Saturday night, comedian Jimmy Carr entertained a packed theatre with his urbane brand of dark, un-PC humour. His promotional statement: “Jimmy’s show contains jokes about all kinds of terrible things. Terrible things that might have affected you or people you know and love. But they’re just jokes – they are not the terrible things.” It takes a certain courage to make jokes about rape, paedophilia, poor parenting, and death, but generally he gets away with it, and he is well onto the next bon mot before…
Continue Reading →Victor Churchill
(953 High Street, Armadale (Melbourne), April 2023) Originally opened in 1876 as a butcher shop in Sydney, Victor Churchill eventually expanded to Melbourne; specifically, Armadale, to which TVC Ubër-ed in the pouring rain. Featuring an artisan butchery and grocer, we came for dinner, at the curved marble dining counter. This is the place for former President George W. Bush (“I’m a meat guy”), but there are plenty of nice alternatives, including one of our starters, delicious oysters naturale with caviar, trimmings, and lemon. TVC’s ‘meat guy’, meanwhile, channelled W’s successor (entering Air Force One, he said “Let’s see how you…
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